Friday Morning Protests Pro-Choice or Anti-Choice

As was previously highlighted by RiotACT on 26th August (link here) a protest and counter-protest has being occurring each Friday morning for the last few months outside of the ACT Health’s Alinga Street offices.

The issue on hand is whether a woman has the right to choose what happens with her own body and the sometimes-controversial topic of abortion.

On the one side we have a rogue group of Christians, the majority of whom are represented by older men who promote that abortions are murder and that abortions will cause breast cancer amongst other things which have been proven untrue (In 1997, the New England Journal of Medicine published the largest-scale study ever on this subject–with 1.5 million participants–which concluded that there is no independent link between abortion and breast cancer). They’re part of the 40 Days For Life “movement” who protest at 422+ sites throughout the world demonizing abortion and contraception.

On the other side we have the counter-protest. A group of women and men from a diverse group of backgrounds who promote the pro-life message, who share the message that a woman has the right to choose what occurs with her body and that contraception is safe. As of late this group has often out numbered the original protesters and has helped to educate the public about the truth. This group is open to anyone and everyone, often having members of the public who walk by join in, and is largely supported by a variety of ACT women’s rights and services groups. A variety of signs are available for anyone who would like to join in can come along, pick up a sign and share the message.

If you’d like to come to the protest or to just see what’s going on it is each Friday morning from roughly 8 AM – 9 AM outside the ACT Health Building.

Bloke: Ummm, i think the condom broke and that i may have gotten you pregnant.
Chick: Thats ok, i know in my heart that you will do whats best. Why else would you say you love me and be pro-life too?
Bloke: Ummm yeah, about that……..

- Estimates indicate that up to 80% of conceptions are aborted in the next menstrual cycle without the woman even knowing she was pregnant. Hence, this religious group’s “god” conducts more abortions than humans could ever initiate themselves. Why do they continue to praise such a murderous god?

Of course if confronted with this, the protesters would rebut “god works in mysterious ways,” or “god is merely aborting babies conceived by satan.”

- Leviticus 19, wearing mixed garments of linen and wool is a sin. What are the protesters wearing?

- All children are born atheists. They are yet to be indoctrinated by their religious parents. Hence, why aren’t these protesters picketing outside the maternity ward of Canberra hospital demanding the immediate stoning of all non-believers, as Deuteronomy 17:2-5 requires?

Ha ha! On a more serious note, I must say I’m intrigued by the “Never an easy choice, sometimes the right choice, always the woman’s choice” sign. This implies two things:

1. The wishes of the father (or “sperm supplier”, if you want to avoid emotional language) are completely subservient to the choice of the “egg supplier”. So imagine you have a couple, in a stable relationship, who get pregnant, (whether by accident or design); if the woman decides to abort, the man must respect her choice and his own thoughts/desires/etc are ultimately less important. I’m not saying that this is how it always happens – just that it’s the logical implication of “Always the woman’s choice”.

2. The corollary of “Sometimes the right choice” is “Sometimes the wrong choice”. Now, for better or for worse (and I’m not even getting into that here), choice is a reality, in abortion as in other spheres of life. And as a society we spend a lot of time and money trying to educate people so that they avoid making the wrong choice in a variety of situations. So if you acknowledge that abortion is not always the right choice, why not spend a bit more time highlighting why it might be the wrong choice?

Exactly what is the “right choice” is different for every woman, and will depend on values, beliefs, emotional stability, family support, partner support, work environment, housing environment, pre-existing medical conditions, etc. It seems to me that Pro Choice activists would be better off ensuring that women make the right choice, whatever that may be, rather than focusing exclusively on the right to choose. This will have a more positive and tangible impact on women’s wellbeing than protesting in support of something which already exists.

OK, I’ll bite, but mostly because the post was a tad biased. The rights argument is, with respect, shallow. The father has rights and so, from some point at least (about which reasonable people may reasonably differ), does the child. A poor choice by one person – not always the case, but often enough – does not entitle that person to disregard the rights of another, especially by killing the other.

Ha ha! On a more serious note, I must say I’m intrigued by the “Never an easy choice, sometimes the right choice, always the woman’s choice” sign. This implies two things:

1. The wishes of the father (or “sperm supplier”, if you want to avoid emotional language) are completely subservient to the choice of the “egg supplier”. So imagine you have a couple, in a stable relationship, who get pregnant, (whether by accident or design); if the woman decides to abort, the man must respect her choice and his own thoughts/desires/etc are ultimately less important. I’m not saying that this is how it always happens – just that it’s the logical implication of “Always the woman’s choice”.

2. The corollary of “Sometimes the right choice” is “Sometimes the wrong choice”. Now, for better or for worse (and I’m not even getting into that here), choice is a reality, in abortion as in other spheres of life. And as a society we spend a lot of time and money trying to educate people so that they avoid making the wrong choice in a variety of situations. So if you acknowledge that abortion is not always the right choice, why not spend a bit more time highlighting why it might be the wrong choice?

Exactly what is the “right choice” is different for every woman, and will depend on values, beliefs, emotional stability, family support, partner support, work environment, housing environment, pre-existing medical conditions, etc. It seems to me that Pro Choice activists would be better off ensuring that women make the right choice, whatever that may be, rather than focusing exclusively on the right to choose. This will have a more positive and tangible impact on women’s wellbeing than protesting in support of something which already exists.

Are you suggesting you think men should have a say in whether a woman carries a pregnancy to full term and gives birth to a child? Just because he donated his sperm? Noice… I sense some serious uterus-envy here.

And of course abortion isn’t always the right choice! If it was, there’d be a lot less babies born.

OK, I’ll bite, but mostly because the post was a tad biased. The rights argument is, with respect, shallow. The father has rights and so, from some point at least (about which reasonable people may reasonably differ), does the child. A poor choice by one person – not always the case, but often enough – does not entitle that person to disregard the rights of another, especially by killing the other.

The father doesn’t have the foetus inside him for nine months. The foetus isn’t a child until very late in the process. It is not a question of abstract rights or even ‘equal rights’ but of realisation that women are the ones affected by pregnancy. Women will abort unwanted pregnancies, whether legally, or, where there is no access to legal abortion, with whatever implement (or potion) is as hand. If you don’t have safe hygienic abortion, you are dooming many women to degrading actions and possible death. Does that worry you?

The idea of discussing abortion with someone who has chosen to call him or herself VicePope is vaguely surreal.

But, Poetix, defining someone as human or not for the sake of attaching rights is, I suggest, the kind of thinking that permits massacres and discrimination against those asserted by a dominant group to be less than human – Jews, say, or Hutus or Hazaras or disabled people. At best, it’s circular; I am human, so I have rights, but I don’t want you to have those rights, so I’ll say you are not human.
And, given that the father would have rights and responsibilities in relation to care were the child to be born, it is a similar flaw to say that he has none prior to that. Being pregnant is a condition, that passes in a natural way, through birth or (sometimes) miscarriage – it is not per se a burden or deformity.
By the way, Vice-Pope (Eric) was an obscure Monty Python character whose name appealed to me. To the best of my knowledge, there is no such position in the Catholic church or any other.

- You neglect to mention that the “anti” have been protesting (by saying their catholic prayers) every friday for about 5 yrs (possibly longer).
- The “pro’s” are late comers on the scene (i.e. the last 6 months).
- Whenever I walk past on a friday morning the “rogue group of Christians” are not “a majority of whom are represented by older men”, but actually quite a ” diverse group of backgrounds who promote the pro-life message”;
- On the other hand the “counter-protest” (A group of women and men from a diverse group of backgrounds who promote the pro-life message), appear to be predominately left-wing uni students and who feel threatened that someone “Old Guy” has an ideology diametrically opposed to theirs.
- Finally, regardless of your view of abortion, live exports or any other political issue, it’s pretty poor form to protest against someone else’s protest.

Sure you have a right to protest… but so do they, and they’ve been doing it there every friday morning for years, rain, hail or shine.

As for the issue being debated: On the one hand I want to protect people from unsafe medical procedures, on the other hand I want to protect the rights of the father & unborn person, on the gripping hand refusing to participate in harm minimisation sure is a good way of weeding out those members of society prone to making poor decisions.

The idea of discussing abortion with someone who has chosen to call him or herself VicePope is vaguely surreal.

I assumed that s/he was identifying as the Pope of Vice – osternsibly something like a ministerial position looking after the time-honoured and institutionalised kind of vice, such as paedophilia – that the Head Pope feels he can hand over to a subordinate, while he spends his time on more important things, like promoting AIDS by declaring condoms sinful and railing against the evils of love and marriage.

OK, I’ll bite, but mostly because the post was a tad biased. The rights argument is, with respect, shallow. The father has rights and so, from some point at least (about which reasonable people may reasonably differ), does the child. A poor choice by one person – not always the case, but often enough – does not entitle that person to disregard the rights of another, especially by killing the other.

The idea of discussing abortion with someone who has chosen to call him or herself VicePope is vaguely surreal.

I assumed that s/he was identifying as the Pope of Vice – osternsibly something like a ministerial position looking after the time-honoured and institutionalised kind of vice, such as paedophilia – that the Head Pope feels he can hand over to a subordinate, while he spends his time on more important things, like promoting AIDS by declaring condoms sinful and railing against the evils of love and marriage.

He explained what he was reffering to a few posts back, a monty python reference…

The author of this article provides a very unbiased view.
On the one hand they are against exporting live animals for slaughter overseas.
On the other hand they are OK with people killing human foetuses.
So come along and pick up a sign and share the message.

OK, I’ll bite, but mostly because the post was a tad biased. The rights argument is, with respect, shallow. The father has rights and so, from some point at least (about which reasonable people may reasonably differ), does the child. A poor choice by one person – not always the case, but often enough – does not entitle that person to disregard the rights of another, especially by killing the other.

The father doesn’t have the foetus inside him for nine months. The foetus isn’t a child until very late in the process. It is not a question of abstract rights or even ‘equal rights’ but of realisation that women are the ones affected by pregnancy. Women will abort unwanted pregnancies, whether legally, or, where there is no access to legal abortion, with whatever implement (or potion) is as hand. If you don’t have safe hygienic abortion, you are dooming many women to degrading actions and possible death. Does that worry you?

The idea of discussing abortion with someone who has chosen to call him or herself VicePope is vaguely surreal.

VicePope said :

But, Poetix, defining someone as human or not for the sake of attaching rights is, I suggest, the kind of thinking that permits massacres and discrimination against those asserted by a dominant group to be less than human – Jews, say, or Hutus or Hazaras or disabled people. At best, it’s circular; I am human, so I have rights, but I don’t want you to have those rights, so I’ll say you are not human.
And, given that the father would have rights and responsibilities in relation to care were the child to be born, it is a similar flaw to say that he has none prior to that. Being pregnant is a condition, that passes in a natural way, through birth or (sometimes) miscarriage – it is not per se a burden or deformity.
By the way, Vice-Pope (Eric) was an obscure Monty Python character whose name appealed to me. To the best of my knowledge, there is no such position in the Catholic church or any other.

You didn’t deal with my point about the damage women will suffer in order to end an unwanted pregnancy, and the fact that some would die doing DIY abortions with tools from Bunnings or wherever. What is a woman’s life worth?

Have you ever been pregnant? I would describe it exactly as a burden. One I wanted, and took up willingly, but physically incredibly difficult, even with the best care and in the best circumstances. Being made to stay pregnant against your will would be a form of torture.

And you can be in favour of access to abortion without engaging in genocide. Though those pesky Kiwis are starting to annoy me…

The author of this article provides a very unbiased view.
On the one hand they are against exporting live animals for slaughter overseas.
On the other hand they are OK with people killing human foetuses.
So come along and pick up a sign and share the message.

The author of this article provides a very unbiased view.
On the one hand they are against exporting live animals for slaughter overseas.
On the other hand they are OK with people killing human foetuses.
So come along and pick up a sign and share the message.

+1

Killing babies is never ok

Are you going to take care of ‘the’ baby? Going to pay for it? Adopt it? Contribute in any meaningful way?

Or just be part of the small rabble that offers an opinion but nothing else?

Poetix – sorry it took a while to get back. I went to Aldi, so had to park at Homeworld where the carpark is full of utes and 4WDs driving in the wrong direction. But no white Commodores.
Point 1 – are you seriously arguing that something should be readily available as a public service just because some people might otherwise choose to break the law and face terrible risks? Would not two better answers be (a) don’t get pregnant if you don’t plan to have a child and (b) if for any reason (a) fails, ensure proper support to the mother and child? Why resort to killing and why demand government support?
Point 2 – no, I have not been pregnant, though I know many people who have been. The overall health risk/burden is not great in a very large majority of cases. Some weight gain, some gestational diabetes in some cases, occasional incontinence. It may be productive to compare it, in duration/severity to an injury but, if so, it would not be a severe one, in the great majority of cases.
Point 3 – no. I recall that Cyril Connolly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_Connolly) had a mention in the Eric the half bee sketch. But I don’t think he was even Catholic.

The author of this article provides a very unbiased view.
On the one hand they are against exporting live animals for slaughter overseas.
On the other hand they are OK with people killing human foetuses.
So come along and pick up a sign and share the message.

+1

Killing babies is never ok

Are you going to take care of ‘the’ baby? Going to pay for it? Adopt it? Contribute in any meaningful way?

Or just be part of the small rabble that offers an opinion but nothing else?

Dilandach – let me just state that I’m pro-choice before I bring this up.

If you’re going to raise the “are you going to take care of it, etc” argument then you have to be prepared to apply those same questions to the pregnant woman. The pro-life groups can quite rationally expect you to explain why the pregnant woman didn’t think of the potential consequences of having sex (eg: pregnancy and the child that may result) before having sex. It’s not really a valid argument.